Trial and Error
From my own personal experience, I believe this is very important if you want to develop a healthy hair regimen that would be beneficial to your own type of hair. You might watch a ton of youtube videos and research all sorts of blogs, just to find that the products you have seen others use on these platforms do not work for you. You will need to invest time and money in finding out what works for your own hair considering your budget, schedule and availability. You may need to buy and try a lot of products (samples if possible) before you discover the ones that work for your hair. Additionally you need to consider how much time you are willing to spend on your hair. For me, I started out with washing and deep conditioning weekly during my transitioning period, this turned out to be tiring and cumbersome. Then when I big chopped I co washed every two days and styled every night, this I also found to be time consuming. Right now, I style once a week, deep condition bi weekly and co wash every alternate week. Its obvious my regimen has evolved over time and I am sure to make more changes as I go along. As for products, I have used all sorts, but this does not have to be you. You can start on a very conservative note, just buying the basics and then progress to bigger things. The main aim, if you have kinky hair, is to find products that are moisture rich and that help to soften your hair.
Determine how often your hair needs to be washed
Be it co washing or shampoo washing, you need to find out how long it takes for your hair to start feeling groggy or itchy. For me, if my hair is in a protective style like a flat twist-updo or mini twist, it takes about six days for my hair to start feeling dirty. Then I know it is time for a wash. If it is not in a protective style, I might need to do a co wash at least every three days. So because I work and live in a busy city like Lagos, I find it much better to put my hair in a protective style on Sundays and wash my hair every Friday night. So I wear my hair out only on weekends. I co wash every two weeks and shampoo wash every alternate week. This means that if I co washed this weekend, I would shampoo wash the next.
Determine how often you need to do a deep treatment or deep conditioning
This could go from doing it weekly, to bi weekly or even monthly. Whatever you decide, it should be based on what your hair needs. For me, I started out doing this once a week during the time I was transitioning, to once a month when I big chopped. However, as my hair grew longer, I noticed it was getting dryer and dryer, I also noticed that I had a lot of split ends and mid shaft breakage, so I decided to deep condition more frequently. Right now, I deep condition every two weeks.
Find out how often you need to moisturize your hair
Natural hair and moisture are BFFs and I mean it when I say it. Whether you are using the LOC method (Liquid-Oil-Cream) or LCO method (Liquid-Cream-Oil), you must keep your hair nice and moist to prevent breakage. For me, I moisturize every day, if my hair is not in a protective style and I use the LOC method. If my hair is in a protective style, I may not need to moisturize everyday, I just spritz my hair lightly with water or my daily spritz. My daily spritz is essentially a home made concoction of 50% water, 30% leave in conditioner and 20% oil, in a spray bottle. For some of us who work in strongly air conditioned offices, you might need to keep that spray bottle handy because the cool hair dries out the hair causing it to need light spritzes once in a while.
Discover the products that work for you
This is very important, like I said before, you need to find out what works for your hair. By this I mean, what makes your hair soft and keeps it moisturized for as long as possible. For all the steps that I have mentioned above, you need products that would help you achieve them. You need a good shampoo (sulphate or non sulphate ), a rince out conditioner, a leave in conditioner, a good deep conditioner, a styling conditioner/butter, light carrier oils, and at least one essential oil.
So peeps, I may not be a natural hair guru, but these a couple of things I know about developing a simple hair regimen for your self. Below I have listed my current regimen and the products I use
Acharacha's Current Regimen
1. Conditioner wash (Co Wash) every two weeks - Tresemme Natural Nourishing Moisture Conditioner
2. Shampoo Wash every two weeks (alternate with co washing) - Shea Moisture Yucca and Boa Boab thickening shampoo
3. Protective Style once a week - Dark and Lovely Au Naturale Coil Moisturizing Souffle
4. Deep Condition every two weeks - Organic Root Simulator Hair Mayonaise
5. Moisturize weekly - Natural Nigerian Leave in Conditioner, Sweet Almond Oil or Coconut Oil
6. Hot oil treatment every two weeks - Mixture of Sweet Almond Oil, coconut oil, peppermint oil and tea tree oil
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